Article Personal and Contextual Variables Related to Work Hope Among Undergraduate Students From

This study investigated the relationships among personal and environmental variables (i.e., college student generation status, psychological distress, experiences with racism and classism, and per-ceived social status [PSS]) and work hope. One hundred and seventy-six undergraduate students attending a predominantly White institution who identified as members of an underrepresented racial/ethnic group completed the study. Consistent with the hypotheses, results demonstrated that increased psychological distress and more experiences with classism, experiences with racism related to lowered levels of work hope and that heightened PSS related positively to work hope. When examined in combination, all variables significantly predicted work hope, but only the bs for psychological distress and PSS were significant. Unexpectedly, first-generation college students did not significantly differ from continuing generation college students in levels of work hope. Limita-tions, directions for future research, and implications for career counseling are presented. Keywords work hope, experiences with racism, experiences with classism, perceived social status, psycholo-gical distress Snyder’s (2000) theory of hope was born out of the positive psychology movement. Hope is defined as a positive motivational state (Snyder et al., 1991) that reflects individuals ’ perceptions regarding their capacity to (a) conceptualize goals, (b) develop pathways toward achieving goals, and (c) uti-lize strategies to achieve goals (Snyder, 2000). Hope has been tested across disciplines and has bee